abandonware games sorted by popularity

Star Control 3 continues the series' blend of space exploration, alien diplomacy, strategy, and combat, taking players back into a galaxy populated by numerous civilizations with t...

Morphman is a quirky puzzle game built around transforming shapes and manipulating objects to overcome increasingly inventive challenges. The central mechanics encourage experiment...

WinTrek brings the Star Trek-inspired space strategy tradition to Windows, placing players in command of a starship and asking them to navigate a hostile galaxy while managing reso...

Top Gun puts you in the cockpit with one straightforward mission: fly fast, shoot things, and try not to turn your expensive aircraft into modern art. Based on the famous movie, th...

Fancy a war under the sea? Battle for Atlantis (1990) asks the age-old question: what if submarines had grudges? This top-down, action strategy title throws you into a deep-sea tur...

18th Airborne is what happens when a military recruitment pamphlet and a tactical shooter have a baby. You’re thrown into the boots of a paratrooper with a mission, a gun, an...

Before London called, Eagle Eye Mysteries: The Original laid the groundwork with a simpler, more classroom-friendly approach to detective work. This is edutainment done with confid...

Welcome to 2112, a game that predicted a grim techno-future back when floppy disks still ruled. This DOS-era oddity throws you into a world that’s part cyberpunk, part fever ...

The Fool's Errand is an unusually imaginative puzzle adventure that wraps dozens of logic challenges inside a strange, interconnected storybook world. Instead of simply presenting ...

With a name like Dink Smallwood, you’d expect something ridiculous—and you’d be right. Released in 1998 for Windows XP, this action RPG follows a pig farmer with ...

Forbidden Quest (1983, DOS) belongs to that early era when imagination did most of the heavy lifting. Sparse visuals and text-driven cues invite you to picture grand dangers lurkin...

Fate: the Traitor Soul is an action RPG built around exploration, combat, loot, and the irresistible temptation to open one more chest before going home. The game sends you into da...

The Neverending Story 2: The Arcade Game takes the fantasy world of Fantasia and turns it into a straightforward arcade adventure. Based on the second NeverEnding Story film, the g...

The Cool Croc Twins is a colorful platform game starring two crocodile brothers who seem to have decided that saving the day is best accomplished while bouncing around, collecting ...

Star Control 2 is a 1992 space adventure widely regarded as one of the standout science-fiction games of its era. It expands the original formula into a huge galaxy filled with ali...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demons...

Released in 1982, Deadline is one of Infocom’s classic text adventures, and it doesn’t pull punches. You’re a detective with twelve in-game hours to solve a murde...

Scorched 3D is a free and open-source artillery game that serves as a modern adaptation of the classic MS-DOS game Scorched Earth. Developed by Gavin Camp, it was first released in...

Based on the film that made air guitar cool (briefly), Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is a time-traveling puzzler where history class meets stoner logic. Gather historical figu...

Released in 1989, this game has you exploring a tomb filled with ancient evils. Navigate through dark corridors, solve puzzles, and confront the awakening demons. It's like playing...

Hocus Pocus is the kind of platformer that seems to run on pure sugar and cheerful chaos. You play as a young wizard with more enthusiasm than common sense, bouncing through colorf...

Arctic Adventure is the sequel nobody asked for to Pharaoh's Tomb, except this time you’re freezing your butt off. As Nevada Smith (not a typo, it’s his real name), you...

Released in 1988, Legend of the Sword is a graphic adventure that tries to blend epic fantasy storytelling with the puzzle-solving spirit of early point-and-clicks. The result is a...

Music Time Deluxe is a Windows-era music education and composition package designed to help users explore musical notation, theory, and basic composition. Instead of treating the c...

Motorcycle racing has never looked so… polygonal. Team Suzuki puts you in the leather suit of a professional racer hurtling around pixel-perfect tracks. The controls are twi...

Released in 1990, _Jetfighter 2: Advanced Tactical Fighter_ delivers a more serious aviation experience than many of its contemporaries. Players pilot advanced military aircraft th...

Visual Basic 3 (VB3) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) released by Microsoft in 1993. It is part of the Visual Basic (VB) series, which is know...

MicroProse Soccer takes the beautiful game and turns it into a fast, energetic arcade experience where spectacular goals matter more than elaborate tactics. The controls are simple...

Ween: The Prophecy is a surreal French adventure that mixes fantasy, strange characters, puzzles, and an atmosphere that occasionally feels as though someone has poured a dream int...

Project: Space Station is a 1987 simulation game that challenges players to design, manage, and operate a futuristic space station. Players must handle construction, resources, and...